Enduring the Silence and Solitude

March 16, 2020 Sideglance

While we bravely stumble along in con fronting an invisible enemy and attempting various ways by which to negate its poison the world, or more particularly those already affected by the insidious and explosive wrath of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 or under its new name COVID-19, seems to have finally gotten its act together and have become united in agreement that one of the best ways to avoid being infected with the deadly virus is through the so called social distancing method of prevention.

Through Wikipedia we find that by definition social distancing refers or is applied to “certain non-pharmaceutical infection control actions taken by public health officials to stop or slow down the spread of a highly contagious disease.

The objective of social distancing is to reduce the probability of contact between persons carrying an infection, and others who are not infected, so as to minimize disease transmission, morbidity and ultimately, mortality”.

The definition further states that social distancing is “most effective when the infection can be transmitted via droplet contact (coughing or sneezing); direct physical contact, including sexual contact; indirect physical contact (e.g. by touching a contaminated surface such as a fomite); or airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods)”

Now since we already know that the new coronavirus can be transmitted via droplet contact or indirect physical contact then social distancing seems a reasonable prevention method to avoid being a COVID-19 victim.

Nonetheless while social distancing may be seen an as effective means to control and prevent the spread of COVID19 it logically results in less human interaction that may affect the behavior of people as social animals.

But then again one must consider the imminent threat posed by COVID-19 which according to the latest updates has already affected 135 countries and territories with 139,637 cases of the Coronavirus and with 5,120 deaths along with 70,733 who have recovered from the illness.

More and more of the affected countries and territories are already adopting the preventive measure of social distancing as a means of arresting the advance of the virus.

Social distancing actually comes in many forms and includes school and workplace closure, isolation and quarantine, cancellation or suspension of large crowd gatherings or events, shutting down or limiting the use of mass transit, closure of public recreational facilities and personal self shielding measures for individuals such as imposing a certain distance between one person to another, avoiding public places and limiting travel.

All of this simply means that putting into effect social distancing, apart from the obvious measure to prevent the
spread of the COVID-19, is the slowing down of all regular and ordinary human interaction and activity with the deliberate intent of replacing this with solitude and silence.

It is as if the world and nature itself, thru COVID-19, is telling mankind to take a break from all of its frenetic and oftentimes chaotic motion in the desire to advance its interests.

Perhaps through social distancing and COVID19 we may yet discover how vital the role we humans play in the future of our world and the need to balance everything for the good of all.